


A Shroud of Cedar and Oak

by ravendas



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Lost Love, Regret, Suicidal Thoughts, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 10:16:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13715562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravendas/pseuds/ravendas
Summary: Falkyr Marahiel believed her childhood friend and true love, Tamlen, to be dead because of her own failings. But what happens when the dead return and you are forced to bury your heart a second time?





	A Shroud of Cedar and Oak

_Shrieking, calling, the earth shaking with the force of the sound. Black wings blot out the sun and eyes of burning fire pierce through the fog to envelop her in their malevolence. She couldn’t look away…she couldn’t get away…they were coming…_

“Wake up!”

A hand shook her shoulder and the familiar voice of Alistair cut through the dream to bring her back to waking reality. But the urgency in his voice somehow hinted that the nightmare wasn’t over yet.

She blinked to full awareness, focusing on his features wrought with concern, his pale brown eyes darting about the camp warily as he knelt beside her, “Did you feel it too? It was like the archdemon saw us… ** _saw_** us! What does that mean?!” Even before she could form a reply, he lunged to his feet, “Wait…did you hear that?”

The woods around them exploded with horrendous high-pitched shrieks, the sound piercing the night air, rousting the rest of the camp with startled cries and rallying calls as her companions armed themselves for battle.

There was barely a moment to breathe before the creatures swarmed, turning their once-idyllic campsite into a frantic battleground. All was chaos as the air was filled with the creatures’ hideous shrieks mingled with the clash of steel, the hum of arrows and sizzle of magic. The battle was short-lived, however, as the darkspawn’s blades and stealth proved no match for their united defense and the camp once more grew quiet as everyone caught their breath.

“Maker, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to sleep again!”

“We’ll need fortifications, a better defense from now on.”

As her companions mused over the attack, a movement caught her eye at the edge of the campfire’s light. _Another darkspawn?_ But no, it seemed…almost elven in form.

“ _Ma vhenan_ …”

The tortured call that came from the creature set her blood to ice. At her side, Leliana swiftly nocked an arrow, but Falkyr shook her head. “No….wait.”

Striding forward, she approached the creature and felt her heart turn to water as her gaze fell upon a familiar pair of blue-green eyes peering from the taint-ravaged face of what was once an elf. “Oh Creators’ mercy…Tamlen?!”

His entire body shook, ravaged by the taint, his hands grasping at the air as though unsure of their purpose.  His voice was raspy, torn, but still a hint of the gentle man she had once known was there. “Falkyr…please...don’t come near me. Stay away!”

As she took a cautious step forward to close the distance between them, he shied away, shaking his head frantically, his hands growing ever more animated, “Please, don’t look at me! I am…sick!”

Falkyr fought to keep the anguish from her own voice as she slowly approached him. Seeing him like this filled her with a despair she had never thought possible, “Tamlen, it’s okay. We can help you.” She did not know if it was possible, but she had to hold onto the hope that maybe…

“NO! There is no help….no help for me.” His fingers, dark and twisted with the rot of the taint reached out to her, only to be snatched back as he staggered back a step, keeping the distance between them. “The song…in my head…it calls to me….wants me to…hurt you. I can’t stop it! I don’t want…to hurt you, _ma vhenan_ , please….you must…stop me!”

She couldn’t bear the torment in his eyes and though every ounce of her being screamed against it, she knew what she had to do. _It’s my fault this happened to him. I should have kept him from touching the mirror, talked him out of exploring that cave…anything. I just wanted him to be happy…and now…this is what he’s become._

Her fingers curled around the hilt of the small dagger she had worn since their return to Ostagar. It had been Duncan’s and Alistair insisted that she kept it, teaching her a few basic techniques on using it, _“If a Templar…or anyone else…manages to disrupt your spells, at least you won’t be defenseless.”_

It felt like a betrayal to have her thoughts turn towards the kind, gentle human Grey Warden who had been at her side since the first night she had entered Ostagar with Duncan, leaving her clan and everything she had known behind her forever. She had found friendship and eventually comfort and love with Alistair, but facing the ruined form of what remained of her childhood friend and love, now called all of that into question.

“ _Ma halani. Ma ghilana mir din'a, ma vhenan_.” 1 The pleading in his eyes, his voice….they were the only things Dalish left about him now. She could see him fighting so hard to retain the tiniest scrap of them before he became lost to the corruption.

She had to kill him, had to give him the release of a quick death….at her hands. She owed that to him. But it felt like she was also slaying everything that she ever had been….everything she had ever hoped to have, to be, before that awful day.

“ _Ir abelas, ma vhenan. Ar lath ma_.” 2 With one swift movement, she plunged the dagger into his chest, her stomach twisting at the sensation of the blade sliding through his heart.

His body sagged against her before slowly sliding from the dagger, still clenched tightly in her grasp. For a moment, she could almost see him as he once was: the gentle, handsome boy with the beautiful eyes and swirling vallaslin caressing his face. His ruined lips curved into something resembling a smile as the last light faded from his eyes, “ _Ar ame revas. Ma serannas….vhenan…_ ”3

The dagger fell from fingers gone numb as she sank to her knees upon the damp ground beside his fallen body. A vast emptiness filled her as choked sobs racked her body, uncaring of the stares of her companions nearby. The only thing she could feel was the cool silver of the ring encircling her finger, given to her by Tamlen what seemed like an eternity ago. The night they had shared their first kiss…the night they had spoken of becoming bonded. Had it not been for the cave, they would have been bonded by now….living with the clan still, happily discussing children. But now, that was all gone…just a fleeting dream. The only future she had now was an endless nightmare of fighting darkspawn, ending in her death at their hands…either on the surface or within the Deep Roads a couple of decades from now.

Even Alistair’s silent, concerned presence behind her offered no comfort, but only more grief. While her clan was fairly tolerant of most humans, to love one…to lie with one…they would have, at the very least, looked upon her with disgust…at worst, exiled her from the clan. She felt as though she had betrayed everything she had once known. _I should have turned Duncan down, stayed with the clan for what little time I had left. Oh Creators, the Keeper did not know what she was doing by insisting I go with him. I could have chosen to die surrounded by my clan, my people, those I loved, rather than on a battlefield or in some lightless cave._

Her gaze fell upon the dagger still lying in the grass. She did not have the strength to end her own suffering…and it seemed selfish and petty to compare it to what Tamlen had endured. Even so, a quick release was such a temptation. To be free of all of this….to be at his side on the paths of the afterlife as she would never be able to be here in this life.

She didn’t know if he could sense what she was thinking or if she had just been there so long as to provoke worry, but she felt Alistair’s hand alight gently upon her shoulder. His voice was quiet, hesitant, as not to intrude upon her grief, “I’m so sorry. That was Tamlen…the one who was with you when….?”

His voice trailed off as she slowly nodded, his fingers offering a gentle squeeze, “You did the right thing…it was a mercy. When the taint is left unchecked…”

Her shoulders tensed beneath his touch and she had to restrain herself from slapping his hand away, from screaming, railing against his attempts at sympathy. _Does he think I don’t know that?! That saying it will make me feel better about having to kill the one person I truly ever loved?! It’s my fault this happened! It’s his precious Duncan’s fault! Why couldn’t he have found Tamlen?! He should have been at my side!_

She wrenched her shoulder out of his grasp and let the torrent of emotion wash over her, as she collapsed onto Tamlen’s body, sobbing in anguish and pain. She barely heard his footsteps retreat, his quiet voice addressing their other companions. Then all was silent in the camp and she finally let herself drown in her bitter grief.

She didn’t know how long she laid there, curled over his body. She had run out of tears and her throat was raw. Even as she slowly lifted her head, eyes refocusing on the campsite, a soft lilting voice spoke quietly at her shoulder.

“We will lay him to rest, when you are ready.”

Falkyr turned to see Leliana crouched beside her, sympathy in her pale blue-grey eyes. The Orlesian girl gestured towards a clearing within a copse of trees where a grave had been dug. As Falkyr rose to her feet, she could see laid out beside it were a small sapling, a staff and a slender branch. _How did they….?_ She briefly puzzled over how their diverse group of shemlen, a flat-ear and a Qunari could have known about Dalish burial customs…until she recalled a brief conversation with Alistair shortly after their flight from the Kocari Wilds.

They had found a sort of common ground, both having lost someone dear to them, but without a body to set to rest. So their conversation had turned to the customs of their respective peoples: the humans of Ferelden honoring their dead upon a flaming pyre, while her own people chose to bury theirs, commemorating the spot by planting a tree.

“ _New life springing from death. That’s…beautiful.”_ She could still hear him whispering it softly under his breath. She hadn’t expected anything more than maybe just a basic acknowledgement at best, derision at worst. Few humans saw their ways as anything more than primitive, quaint, or strange. It had been one of the small initial turning points in their relationship.

The Qunari, Sten, knelt and gathered Tamlen’s body into his arms, cradling it as a mother with her newborn babe, and made his way to the grave, settling the elf’s form gently within the earthen depths. Falkyr then laid the oaken staff, to help guide his way to the side of Falon’din, and the cedar branch, to ward off the twin ravens of Fear and Deceit on his journey, upon his unmoving body.

Then, almost as one, each of her companions walked to the mound of upturned earth and gathered as much as their cupped hands could hold and began covering Tamlen’s body with the soil. For a long moment, she could do nothing but stand and watch, amazed and touched beyond words at the gesture…until she too, joined the procession to slowly fill in the grave.

Even her mabari, whom she had ironically named Fen’Haral after the dread wolf of elven legend, seemed to catch onto the solemn nature of the gathering and laid down at the foot of the grave, resting his head upon his large paws, his dark brown eyes gazing up at Falkyr mournfully.

As the deep hole began to fill and Tamlen’s body could no longer be seen, she knelt and placed the sapling within the mound of soil, gently covering the roots which would slowly grow to embrace his remains as the years passed by. As she did, a soft, lilting tune filled the night air as Leliana began to sing.

 _hahren na melana sahlin_  
_emma ir abelas_  
_souver'inan isala hamin_  
_vhenan him dor'felas_  
_in uthenera na revas_  
  
_vir sulahn'nehn_  
_vir dirthera_  
_vir samahl la numin_  
_vir lath sa'vunin_

Her vision blurred and tears once more filled her eyes, as she recognized the funeral song of the Dalish. Her shoulders shook as she dug her fingers into the cool soil, even as the others continued to sprinkle the last of it over the grave. Everything around her seemed to fade as the haunting music brought forth memories from a happier time…

_Running through the forest surrounding their camp, chasing down an elusive halla that had strayed from the pens._

_Tamlen’s laughter as she demonstrated a new spell, his gaze sparkling with mirth as she snap-freezes Merrill’s dinner, much to the chagrin of the other mage._

_His voice, quiet and soothing, as he recites the tale of the Dread Wolf to the children of the clan, a smile flitting across his lips as he meets her gaze._

_Lying beneath the stars on a warm spring evening, content to just be in one another’s company, their fingers shyly entwining._

_His fingers gently tracing the curve of her cheek as they share their first kiss behind the aravels, the quiet bleating of the halla filling the air._

_His arms around her, holding her close, whispering words of endearment…her heart near to bursting with joy at the prospect of their bonding._

Her body shook in the silence following the sound of footsteps receding. Only Alistair remained, with Fen’Haral curled up forlornly near his feet. _I’m sorry…I’m so so sorry…._ She wasn’t sure if her thoughts were directed at Tamlen or Alistair. She felt as though she had done them both a horrible disservice. She had tarnished her memories of Tamlen by falling into the arms of a human. And she had unwittingly given Alistair her heart, when it still belonged to Tamlen...it always would. She realized that now. It was terribly unfair to Alistair, as sweet and kind and gentle as he was, to continue as though she could ever feel for him what she felt for Tamlen.

She felt a stone of resignation take root within her soul. There was nothing left for her here….nothing but death and the inevitability that it would come sooner rather than later for her. A flash of vision swept through her senses for a brief instant: _The archdemon screaming in agony as the world explodes around her into darkness._ A sort of fatalistic resolve overtook her, _I will live to see this Blight ended…and then…my purpose will be fulfilled and we will be together once again._

With that thought, she rose and brushed the dirt from her hands and knees. As she turned to Alistair, she could almost see the sorrow and disappointment in his eyes. _He knows….he can feel it._ Part of her wanted to embrace him, to apologize, to tell him she still cared. But, she found she couldn’t…the pain of the memories they shared was too strong.  They had been through so much together, it was no surprise they had found comfort in each other….but now, there was no longer any comfort to be found for her with him….only pain and sorrow.

So, with one last regretful glance, she turned from him and silently walked back to her tent. As she disappeared within, she almost thought she heard the faint echoes of a quiet, “Goodbye” wafting upon the night breeze.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on two mods by two very talented ladies: "Killing Tamlen" by Andrastini (https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/4591/), and "Tamlen's Last Goodbye" by SarahCousland that I had the honor of beta-testing (https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/4864).
> 
> They show the aftermath of the shriek attack on camp where Marahiel is forced to slay a tainted Tamlen and the funeral that is held in his memory. 
> 
> Dalish translations courtesy of Wiki:  
> 1: "Help me. Guide me unto death, my love."  
> 2: "I am so sorry, my heart. I love you."  
> 3: "I am free. Thank you, my love."
> 
> "In Uthenera", a traditional Dalish song:  
> elder your time is come  
> now I am filled with sorrow  
> weary eyes need resting  
> heart has become grey and slow  
> in waking sleep is freedom
> 
> we sing, rejoice  
> we tell the tales  
> we laugh and cry  
> we love one more day


End file.
